Please Don't Leave Me
by I'mtheAlphahearmeRoar
Summary: Derek should have known Stiles wouldn't listen.


**_I'm sorry/not sorry but this came to me while listening to Please Don't Leave Me by Pink. I find it fits Sterek so well. Have a listen while you read, it does horrible wonders to your feels!_**

* * *

"_No!_"

"But _Derek_, I can_ help_ you guys! I'm a—"

Derek growls, the ferocity of it rumbling in his throat. "Just because you're a werewolf now doesn't mean you can suddenly fight everything that comes your way, Stiles. You need _training _like everybody else, and you're not coming along until I know it is safe enough to let you join us."

Stiles scoffs irrationally, eyes flashing an iridescent cobalt blue (even though it had been the Nogitsune that had killed all those people, he had been the one possessed by it, and it seems as if some things like that just can't be overlooked). "But Derek, I can fight fine—actually y'know what? _Better _than fine! You saw how I tackled Isaac down the other day! And you turned him first, which means he was the most powerful out of all of your Betas!"

Derek sighs, closing his eyes. "Isaac wasn't my strongest Beta just because I turned him first. He's strong because he has the inner _strength _to control the wolf inside of him, and he learned to do that quicker than the others by tethering that strength with an anchor powerful and meaningful enough to aid him in the shift."

"Wow, looks like I don't know as much about you guys as I thought I did," Stiles whistles, biting his lip before he can snort in derision. "And also, just so you know, what makes you think _I _don't have a "powerful and meaningful" anchor to help me control my wolf? What makes you think I can't handle a fight with a few_ hunters!_"

Derek's eyes snap open, the hazel-green around the pupils glinting icily before they warm into a pleading gaze. "Stiles, please, do not argue with me on this. _Understand _that I'm only doing this for your own good."

"My own good? How is this for my own _good?_" Stiles laughs, bitter and sarcastic. "I'm gonna have to learn how to fight sooner or later, right? _Right?_" Derek's lips curl down, eyebrows scrunching in frustration and a small fraction of resignation. "Right! So that means if I want to learn how to fight, I should get out there and _fight! _Learn first-hand how it's done!"

"_Stiles_." Derek stresses the word between his teeth so it comes out raw and brittle. "I can't let you go with us. It's too dangerous and I can't make sure you're safe. I _need _that, okay? I need you to be safe."

"De—"

"So you're staying here, and that's final," Derek concludes, turning and walking away. He hears the teen's jaw grinding against a snarl, smells the rage clouding the space around the young wolf, but ignores it as he slides the loft's door shut behind him.

* * *

Derek should have known Stiles wouldn't listen. He should have had Deaton surround the place in Mountain Ash, make it so the teenager couldn't leave the loft. But no, the trust in Stiles that he would stay put overtook the worry that maybe he would follow. Instead of making extra precautions to keep the boy locked away, _safe_, he had not done anything.

Now, though, Derek wishes he had.

If he had, Stiles wouldn't be bleeding out right now. Wouldn't be fighting for breath—for _life_—in his arms, struggling for air on every inhale and exhale, skin pale and clammy, wolfsbane pumping charcoal through his veins. Wouldn't be _dying_.

"Should 'ave s-s-stayed," Stiles wheezes, trembling as spasms wrack through his body. Black blood stains his teeth and Derek watches helplessly when, with another jolt, more seeps out, dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

"Shhh, it's okay," Derek soothes, fingers smoothing back slick brown strands from the boy's sweaty forehead, thumb stroking over the pained crease between his eyebrows. "Don't talk. You're going to be fine."

_Lie._

Derek knows it is, and he's sure that Stiles knows too.

"M'not D-D-De—Der," Stiles chokes, breath shuddering sharply, haggard through his lungs, and Derek understands why. The first bullet had hit him in the thigh, Stiles sinking to the ground with a shrill whimper that Derek had keened to instantly in response, eyes wide in terror when he saw the hunter standing over the boy. The other had entered through his chest, scraping a lung and lodging in his ribs, Derek being too late to stop the hunter from shooting again while the young wolf was down.

"**_Stiles!?_**"

Derek hears the howl that laces through Scott's words, the Alpha falling to his knees beside them, Isaac bounding over directly at his heels while Lydia runs over too. When she sees the bloody, broken body of the boy who used to love her wrapped up in the arms of another she gasps, hand held over her mouth.

"Wolfsbane," Isaac undertones, voice clogged up in despair. Lydia sobs then, tears welling in her eyes, and kneels down on the other side of Scott.

"Stiles," she says softly, shoulders shaking as she holds back her cries. Scott's shaking too, full-bodied in grief, and he brings a quivering hand to lace with one of Stiles', pale and limp on the ground. Derek sees the wince on Scott's face, the hiss of breath leaving Stiles, snatches Scott's hand and pulls it away.

"No, don't," he rushes out, Scott's confusion evident. "You can't take his pain. It'll make it worse."

"How does it make it _worse?_" Scott snaps, angry and non-understanding, trying to grab Stiles' hand again to take more pain.

This time it's Stiles who moves it away, weakly rising it and shifting it out of reach.

"N-No, Scotty," he murmurs, lips stretching into a gentle smile, dark amber eyes fluttering. "D-Don't hurt y-y-your—self tryna' he-help me."

"B-But Stiles, y-you're my brother. I can't let you _die_." Scott's eyes flash, the red searing through the brown.

Stiles chuckles, immediately coughing at the action, body seizing up. Derek feels the stinging sensation of tears in his eyes as he feels the boy in his arms gasp for air, choking on the bile that he knows would be pooling in the back of his throat, blocking his airways.

But then the coughing stops, abrupt and sudden.

"B—B-Brothers," comes a breathless whisper, so fragile that it's barely heard.

Derek looks down at Stiles, sees the agony written all over the boy's face, not knowing that it'll be the last expression he'll ever get to see. He feels his heart stutter when the one he's so used to falling asleep to every night halts to a stop, light dimming from whiskey eyes until they're dull and bleak of life.

The body in Derek's arms goes slack and boneless and it's everything Derek's dreaded, arms tightening around the lifeless young wolf clutched in his embrace as he rocks them back and forth, shutting his eyes and letting himself sob and whine _please don't leave me's_ even though he knows it's too late.

With the moon high and bright in the sky, Scott howls and Lydia screams.


End file.
